About Pope Francis and the Encyclical • Our Responsibility to Others • Concerns of Young People • Education Is Important

Notes from Care of Our Common Home Feb. 14, 2016 Outline of Main Topics That Emerged in the Groups • About Pope Francis and the Encyclical • Our responsibility to others • Concerns of Young People • Education is important. • What I can do on my own to feel that I am making a contribution. • Is individual action enough? • Local Action, Volunteerism is important. • Public Policy: State, National and International Efforts • Political problems • On Faith and Religions, impact on environment • Factors that affect the damage of the earth • Current environmental problems • On Population and Sustainable Earth • Agricultural Practices, Sustainability and Food • On How to Conduct the Dialogue in Our Lives • Our feelings about the state of the earth and our actions 1 Notes below are (mostly) direct quotes from the group discussions. * indicates resource to be put in a resource list. About Pope Francis and the Encyclical It took a Pope to voice this. “Great Man” theory of history. Pope Francis: environment interwoven with social justice. Poor are affected the most. Need to influence the big picture. The Pope points out that the poor are disproportionately affected by environmental crisis. Pope Francis is a “stand up” guy. The environment should be one of the great topics of our time. How will the catholic church react to Pope Francis treatise. He identifies with poor so PF is trying to help them, the disadvantaged.. Pope Francis is concerned about caring for God’s earth but also aware of scientific facts. Pope Francis is bringing the matter of climate change to broader audience Read the encyclical. The pope is right about greed. Wrong about overpopulation. The pope’s issues are not black and white. There are tradeoffs. Our responsibility to others: broader than issue of environment: poverty and human rights; the environment offers opportunity to help others to alleviate poverty and violation of human rights. “Dominion” over the earth actually meant stewardship. “Dominion” is actually “responsibility” a healthy environment works against poverty so the two are linked as Pope Francis says . The Flint, MI water crisis is an example. Affordability of healthy food for everyone is another. Nature and spirituality are also linked together as he said in the Encyclical. Concerns of Young People Younger generation is disillusioned by my generation 2 Children are concerned about their future. At college studyng env. Science and business consumerism with environ being foremost. My 18 year old gets it. Youth are indifferent. Sorry people feel hopeless, especially young. Older are counting on youth. Education is important. Hopeful for our youth to understand and perhaps educate their parents. Work within standards of learning with schools. High school generation now do not go outside. Pragmatic approach: education. Try to open kids to experience of BEING in nature and making their own observations. People don’t understand the problems. Educate others to change hearts and minds. What I can do on my own to feel that I am making a contribution. We all have talents which are needed to find solutions, not point fingers. Downsize our homes and cut energy use. We make choices. Be a responsible purchaser. Bird watching is an activity that brings you close to nature and concerned about habitat, e.g. rain forests. Are we being seduced by substituting things like LED bulbs, instead of changing lifestyle? How much do I have to sacrifice to make this work? Do I have to give up air travel to visit my kids? That is why this conversation is so important. We need more voices at the table. *Wendell Berry. Says you’re leading a better life when you use less resources. Being a vegetarian isn’t so bad! Recycle? You can make plastics out of vegetables. Winchester TREX. Some people are giving more experiences than material objects as gifts. An individual can operate at Three levels of what to do: 3 - In our own back yard, planting natives, supporting ecosystems, supporting pollinators, birds, wildlife, diversity, observe interactions. - Regional. Joining with others & orgs to protect ecosystems and educate landowners. - International. Choose an issue, learn about it, spread the word, be part of worldwide orgs. Look at your investment portfolio. What companies are you supporting? “What can I do?” e.g. recycle. But people are not making money on recycling now, so it is not effective. Recycle, buy local, argue with neighbors not to have perfect lawn with pesticides. Reduced my energy footprint by installing solar energy system. don’t talk about how you love the planet, show it. Concerned about the amount of driving that is necessary living in the country. Can’t afford a high mileage car. TURN OFF Air Conditioning FOR AWHILE *Green Faith website. Advice what to do: go meatless 2x per week; drop thrermostat by 2 degrees; walk or bicycle; use clothesline; change bulbs to LED Is individual action enough? Need to work with others rather than just making individual choices. Go from being individual victims to being collective survivors. What we do to deal with climate change can help people in poverty. We can now build upon the Pope’s platform…alternative energy sources. Raise public awareness -- letters, legislature, news with the drop in oil prices, it's now cheaper for companies to make new plastic bags, containers, pill containers, etc,. than it is to recycle. A lady from St. James mentioned that the parish had cloth shopping bags made and sold them. Folks take selfies in the store to show that they are using the cloth bags and not plastic ones. The fact that plastic can also be made out of vegetable matter (which 4 makes it biodegradable) was also raised. This led back to a discussion of how "us" as individuals can make an impact when it seems like there are so many big corporations controlling things. One person in the group kept raising the issue that it's just too big for us to do anything, but the rest of the group still wanted to think of things we could each do to become involved. We make compromises. Raised on a farm now in my 80s know about land preservation but as artist I use coal as a fuel in my artistic work. Local Action, Volunteerism is important. Stewardship. What can we do in our communities, e.g. food pantry, habitat for local animals. Do it locally and if everyone does, whole communities will be healthy. Just one little person, but can join with others, e.g. rappflow, PEC, to monitor and maintain the rivers and lland. Beautiful county. Please preserve it. Consider models of development such as in Europe where population centers are surrounded by farmland. Instill pride in nature. Littering on country roads. Adopt a highway. “its all local”. Support local organizations like rappflow. Pick one project at a time. manage it. Planting seed; business; education; get chickens. Business: starting to invest in sustainable. You can find out what they are doing. Consider boycott of bad companies. What can we do locally? Earth day.. Ask the Rappahannock news to write obituaries on species extinction Ministers of churches can do services to memorialize extinctions Boycotting or encouraging local business. Reward who does things right. Humans are smart; we have ability to change things. Need to encourage preservation of places like Rappahannock. Real estate agents need letter ABOUT DARK SKIES 5 waste and finding ways to eliminate it can be addressed here and now through projects like the local Food Pantry and recycling efforts here in Rappahannock. Public Policy: State, National and International Efforts Changes in behavior can change your beliefs. People may not like mandates handed down by governments, but if you do it, you can see the benefits. SNP is wonderful but people lost their homes Albemarle county…loss of countryside. Would hate to see rappahannhock go their direction. It comes down to people. Pope talks about “technology” as abstract. Said until we feel pain we wont act. What is chance of enlightening 7 billion. But if we could enlighten lawmakers, could have an impact. Need international solutions to reduce pollution, e.g. carbon tax A member of our group who attended the climate change talks in Paris reported the United States is the only place in the world where climate change is a controversial issue and we are out of step about this with the rest of the world. We need to address political issues here in Virginia that, due to legislation, keep solar installations from being as profitable as they are in surrounding states. China, india are waiting to see US action before… Compare yourself to the other billions of people on the planet, not to your next door neighbor. E.g. in terms of size of house Opportunity to help has been present for long time. world is interdependent web need to coordinate efforts inter country wide on a world view Problem = global polluters, corporations, need to take this on Several folks spoke of wanting solar panels on their houses, but finding that in Virginia they have been too expensive to ever reach break-even. The group leader, however, noted that in Maryland, where they have a house also, solar panels are encouraged and have a good break-even. The comment was made, "What does Dominion Power do to control Virginia?" 6 the state of Maine sold LED bulbs for $2 each so that people would convert to them and save the state the cost of having to build a new power plant. Why not in Virginia? Maine has subsidy on LED bulbs. Thinking ahead to impact on need for expansion of energy plants. Support policy ideas in Congress; Need to support the Paris agreement.

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